It has been almost ten years since I got tired of the lack of an official Lego Balrog, and made one myself.
Now, however, Lego has finally revealed their official The Lord of the Rings: Balrog™ Book Nook (10367)… and it’s not very good? The idea of a ”book nook” is trendy right now, and their other one with Sherlock Holmes is kind of cute, also providing a bunch of cool figures. But this is lacking on many levels. The balrog itself is chunky, round and has very little definition. The wings are spindly. The whip is pretty weak. There is no sword. The face, while obviously printed, looks cartoony, but is probably the best part. The wings do attach to the pillars and open with the structure which is a neat feature, but at the same time I don’t think it’s really worth the sacrifice.
And the rest? Strange macaroni pieces represent the fire, and there’s no backdrop. Now, realistically this thing will actually be placed between books, where many of the flaws will be hidden. But that’s also kind of a problem, since the scene is supposed to be full of contrast and flame, not hidden in shadow. And since it’s still rather big, a lot of small books will just fall into this thing. No, this needed more work.
At least it made me go back to my version, which was heavily based on the video game renditions from the Lego Lord of the Rings and Lego Dimension titles. Already back then I made some changes, but it was still very fragile. I made two sets, and when this set was first rumoured I came back to update one of them with newer, better parts. Then recently I added the same updates to the other, and decided that both could be improved. So, with all that said, here’s my new take on the game version of the Lego Balrog.
One definite improvement is the legs. They now sit on balljoint feet which are quite sturdy. With new inverted curved slopes I could make the structure simpler and still well defined. The hip has the newer narrower ratchet connectors, so the whole thing is not as wide.
The arms are now connected by standard balljoints. One flaw currently is that the shoulder movement is limited so it can’t stretch its arms straight up, but the new construction figure pauldron was extremely useful to get the big muscular look. Otherwise they’re mostly the same, although the fingers are now more solid. The wings are also mostly the same, just with extra hinges for stability.
The body needed a lot of work. It barely held together, so some internal structure has been replaced. I briefly toyed with adding a light brick, but it didn’t quite fit without changing the exterior. Still, there’s a lot of transparent parts in it so it could yet work. The face is the same, but the horns have been replaced. There’s also a lot more flames on top, and I also added some to its ankles.
I’m still thinking of ways to make it better, so there might be some further additions, but for now I’m planning to sell my second copy.
So I may be partial, but I feel that mine is better. There are obviously limits to what can be done in an official build, which needs to be buildable by anyone, but my current version doesn’t really use any weird techniques except for some of the strange stuff going on with the wings (including a toolkit piece, paper extensions which would be fabric or plastic in an official build, and a bar that fits too tightly). Some parts are still fragile, like the claws on the wings, but overall it holds up much better now. Some would also need to be replaced like the old fenris head used for the jaw, but I’m sure Lego could think of something. A lot of the parts budget also goes into the pillar structure, but I feel that was a waste to begin with. This could have been a movie display piece like the Jurassic Park or Jaws sets, and have most of the parts dedicated to the important thing.
Oh well. At least I don’t need to spend 1600 SEK (about 150 euro) on this.
